In the past two years, the competition between various countries in the field of 5G communications is no less than the competition in terms of resources. European and American countries led by the United States have blocked and dismantled Huawei's 5G equipment, on the one hand, in order to suppress Huawei's momentum of riding in the field of 5G, on the other hand, to avoid Huawei and seize the right to speak and priority in the 5G communication track.
Not long ago, the former senior official of the British Ministry of Commerce admitted to the media that the ban was due to pressure from the United States, and there was a good intention between the words, and many people speculated at that time whether the British move revealed the idea of re-cooperating with Huawei. But unexpectedly, recently, the United Kingdom has made another move, breaking people's guesses.
On January 20, Vomfonda UK's official website released a new announcement that it would activate the first 5G Open RAN site in the UK. In addition, Vodafone also said that this activation is only the first step in the large-scale delivery of Open RAN in the UK, and the company expects to complete the delivery of 2500 Open RAN communication sites including 4G and 5G in 2027.
What is the intention of the LARGE-scale deployment of 5G Open RAN communication sites in the UK?
The first is that the United Kingdom put it on the surface, and the installation of open RAN communication sites is to replace Huawei's 5G equipment, which is an important step after the United Kingdom forcibly dismantled Huawei. Secondly, from the nature and advantages of Open RAN, the UK's move also contains the idea of competing for the independent voice of 5G communications through Open RAN.
Before we do that, let's take a look at Open RAN and traditional RAN.
OpenRAN, or open wireless access network, is an emerging 5G technology. Compared with the traditional RAN, its compatibility is stronger, and the facilities that could not be coordinated can be coordinated with each other after the Open RAN site is connected to the fusion.
In addition, the modular construction of base stations through open interfaces and open software can also reduce the cost of 5G communication to a certain extent, and the independence is higher than that of traditional 5G base stations.
In order to explore open wireless access networks, Google, Nokia, Ericsson, ZTE and other giants in the field of communications have jointly formed the O-RAN Alliance. The alliance has a total of more than 200 enterprises from all over the world, including more than 40 Chinese companies and more than 80 American companies, and has a strong voice in the global 5G track.
At the same time, European and American countries are gradually expanding the deployment of 5GOpenRAN, and have set up a special Open RAN alliance to try to form a unified front in order to get an independent and strong voice and compete with the O-RAN alliance. It is worth noting that the alliance does not have a single Chinese enterprise.
That is to say, European and American countries want to firmly grasp the right to speak in their own hands through Open RAN and completely exclude China. But can OpenRAN really take on this responsibility and help the UK grab the 5G discourse? In fact, it is still very difficult, mainly in 3 aspects:
1. Industrial ecology
Traditional RAN has been deeply cultivated for many years, whether it is industry or technology, it is already very mature. Open RAN is now in the early stage of development, everything is still exploring, the industrial ecology has not yet taken shape, there is no comprehensive and complete industrial standard, whether it is in technical research or in the construction of industrial ecology, it is necessary to consume great resources and capital costs.
2. Self-defects
The open RAN is not perfect, and it has unavoidable flaws. As early as 2019, when Huawei's second-generation research and development team specializing in 4G base stations studied 4G base stations equipped with Intel CPU white boxes, it was found that after equipped with white box hardware, the power consumption of the base station was exactly 10 times higher than that of the traditional ones, and the 5G base station would be even worse.
The Lily hardware of the Intel CPU here is the open RAN, so there is instability in Open RAN, and there are still many places that need to be improved, and if you want to replace the traditional RAN with Open RAN, you need to overcome technical instability.
3. Technical patents
At present, Huawei is already the company with the largest number of 5G patents in the world, and its effective patent share in the industry is as high as 15.93%. In March last year, Huawei officially announced that it would collect patent fees for 5G technology, and received $600 million in patent fees from Apple in the first quarter of 2021.
Technology is the foundation of 5G development, and if you want to build 5G, even if you give up Huawei's communication equipment, you can't escape the use of Huawei's 5G technology. As long as Huawei can always maintain a leading position in technology, it is difficult to take away the right to speak.
Of course, pushing for 5G Open RAN is not without help for the UK. Vodafone's 5G Open RAN site can help the UK achieve the development of 5G communication technology to a certain extent and promote the progress of the UK communications industry. For the United Kingdom, which has been seriously injured by the comprehensive dismantling of Huawei's communication equipment, it is also a way to recover.
According to the Financial Times, Vodafone's main suppliers were Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia. But the biggest winners of open networking model with OPEN RAN are South Korea's Samsung and Japan's NEC Group, which won the most hardware and software contracts.
The UK is not alone, many countries and companies are eyeing the 5G and even 6G communications field. It is hoped that Huawei can continuously improve its technical strength and maintain its position as the leader in the industry in this fierce competition.